by Brook Wilder
He leaned forward, a sparkle in his eye. “Did you sleep with Jon?”
“What? Hell no. I haven’t.”
“Then I haven’t either.”
The relief was far more palpable than I would have imagined. “Never? You didn’t do anything with her?”
His grin widened. “I didn’t say that, Alisha. I said I didn’t sleep with her.”
I tamped down that ugly head of jealousy, wanting to break her hands for touching my man.
Whoa. Seth was not my man. He hadn’t been for a long time. He was free to do whatever he wanted to, with whomever he wanted to, just like I was.
“That’s personal. I’m sorry.”
Seth gave me a shrug. “I don’t have any secrets with you. If you want to know, there have been other women, but nothing serious since you. I, well hell, I couldn’t even begin to think the way I did when I was with you.”
His words tugged on my heart and I knew deep down the same thing had happened to me. As much as I wanted to blame it on my job, it wasn’t the complete truth.
None of the guys I had dated were Seth. There was no one like Seth. I could search the rest of my life, and in my heart, I knew I’d never have the same thing I’d had with him. He was my first for everything.
I had been a sixteen-year-old kid trying to be something else when he found me.
***
I tipped the bottle up to my lips, choking down the warm beer. I didn’t like beer, much preferring something fruity, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself in this bar. I wasn’t even old enough to be in here, much less drink this beer, but the group of friends I came in with tonight knew the owner and he had supplied us alcohol for the last hour. Already my head was buzzing, and I knew if I showed up home drunk one more time, my dad was going to have a shit fit.
My parents wanted me to be Janie. I couldn’t be Janie. I was barely passing my classes, struggling even with a tutor to keep my grades afloat, and I had two more weeks until the end of the school year. I couldn’t miss another day of school.
I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t going to go to college. I just wanted to have a good time, like tonight.
Grabbing the other bottle of beer, I turned around, running smack into a hard wall. “Easy now,” someone above me said, hands gripping my bare arms. “I like to drink my beer, not wear it.”
I looked up and my breath caught as I stared into a pair of green eyes framed by a gorgeous face and mouth.
Wow. “I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” he said, releasing me.
I felt the disconnect instantly and nearly begged for him to touch me again just so I could have my body warm up all over again.
“I’m Seth.”
“Alisha,” I forced out, holding out the full beer. “Here, for me rudely bumping into you.”
He grinned and my knees went weak. This was no kid I had seen before. He was far too cute. “Thanks.”
Our fingers brushed as he took the beer out of my hand, motioning toward the smoking deck. “I’ll drink this if you come keep me company while I burn one.”
I gave him my best smile. “Sure, I would love to.”
***
“Do you remember how we met?” I asked, shaking out of the memory.
He grinned. “You nearly spilt beer all over my new shirt. You weren’t even old enough to be in that place, much less be drinking beer. And you hate beer.”
I smiled. “I know. It was the only thing they would give us under the table.”
“I kissed you that night,” Seth answered, his expression suddenly serious. “Didn’t even know how young you were until later.”
I ducked my head. I had hidden my age from him for the longest time, afraid if he found out I was underage, he would dump me. Even though there were only two years between us, love between a sixteen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old was asking for trouble. Thank God I had turned seventeen a month later or my dad would have had Seth arrested for sure.
“I didn’t want you to leave.”
“I didn’t want to leave,” he said softly. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from you then.”
That was it. That was what I was talking about. Never would I find someone like him, someone who knew all the right things to say to have me swooning over his words and wanting to crawl into his arms.
No one was worth the time or the effort because they couldn’t give me that.
“Well,” Seth said after a moment. “I guess we should be moving on.”
I blinked a few times as he threw some bills on the table, really not ready to go back to the office or to my parents’ house just yet. I wanted to keep this conversation going, see if what we had between us was still there.
Ugh, I was flirting with some serious danger here. “Thanks for dinner.”
“Anytime,” he said as we walked toward the door together. “It’s good to see you, Alisha.”
“You too,” I said softly, trying to figure out how to tell him I didn’t want to leave.
But as we pushed open the doors together, I stopped in my tracks, all the fuzzy feelings fleeing from my body. Jon stood in the parking lot. Behind him were two uniformed cops, both with their hands on their guns and looking bored.
“What’s the meaning of this, Jon?” I asked, pissed off he wouldn’t leave this well enough alone.
Seth stepped in front of me, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. “Evening, officers. I didn’t know it was a crime to have dinner with an old friend.”
Jon stepped forward, seething. “It is when you lay a hand on a federal agent and are impeding the work of one.”
Impeding the work? Incredulous, I stepped next to Seth. “He’s not impeding anything. He’s helping with my investigation. Garrett split us up to do a job, Jon, and you are not helping me do mine.”
“He’s a damn Jester, Alisha,” Jon spit out, his face red. “You can’t trust him.”
“I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust you at the moment,” I fired back. “You aren’t acting like a federal agent right now. You aren’t even acting like my partner.”
Jon reeled back like I had hit him, and I regretted my words immediately. We shouldn’t be fighting in front of law enforcement or airing our dirty laundry in front of the man beside me, but it was Jon’s fault for forcing me to be this blunt. I was tired of him trying to protect me.
I could handle myself.
So, I pulled rank on him, pulling out my badge and flashing it at the officers. “I’m Agent Poole of the ATF. Mr. Owens is helping me with an investigation.”
“So, he’s not threatening you?” one of them asked, eyeing Seth like he was a two-headed clown or something.
“No, he’s not threatening me,” I bit out, shooting Jon a glare. “Sorry to waste your time.”
“Alright then, Agent Poole,” the other said with a shrug, motioning to their partner. “There’s nothing here we need to do. Call us if you need any other assistance.”
Jon watched helplessly as the officers got back into their patrol car and pulled out of the parking lot before turning back to me, to Seth. “This isn’t over with, Jester.”
“I sure hope not,” Seth said. “It’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
Jon made a disgusted sound before stalking off to his car, peeling out of the parking lot a second later.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, embarrassed my partner was acting like a five-year-old who couldn’t have dessert after supper. “I don’t know what has gotten into him.”
“I bet I can guess,” Seth chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “After that, I need a drink. You want to come over to the house? I’ve got a bottle of wine or two in the fridge.”
My mind raced back to my earlier thoughts of doing just that, wanting to spend some time with Seth as Seth. Not as a Jester, not as the man I should be arresting.
I wanted to push away our titles and just enjoy catching up with a long-lost friend. “Sure, that would be great.”
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“Really?”
“Really. Can we take the bike though?” I didn’t want Jon to spot my car at Seth’s house and try to make something more than what it was.
I really didn’t even know what it was, but I had to be careful. While I wanted to spend time with him, I couldn’t get involved. The moment I did, this whole investigation could derail, and I could be looking at my job for consorting with the enemy.
I couldn’t take that kind of chance. “Just one drink.”
Seth gave me a smile I felt clear to my toes, and led me over to his bike, the chrome gleaming in the streetlight. How many times had we tore down the highway on this thing, without a care in the world?
We had done other things on this bike too, things that made me even wonder how we even accomplished it back then.
“Here,” Seth said, handing me his helmet. I took it, sliding it over my head and pulling it down around my chin, glad to see he still wore it after all these years. It had always been my worst fear to have him lose control of the bike and split his head open on the pavement, and for that, I had urged him to wear one.
He had and apparently hadn’t stopped doing so. “Thanks.”
“Yep,” he said, swinging his long leg over the bike. “Hop on.”
I did as he asked, suddenly shy as to where to put my hands. Back then it was nothing for me to snuggle up against the warm leather of his vest, wrap my arms around his waist and pretend there was no one else on the road but the two of us.
But things were different now. We weren’t together and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to touch him like that.
I was afraid I might not let go.
So, I gripped his belt with my hands instead as he fired up the bike, the engine rumbling under my legs. Seth was a careful driver and I knew we didn’t have far to go to his house, remembering the path like I had driven it yesterday.
There were so many things I remembered tonight, so many things that made my heart hurt. I had left all of this.
I had left him.
Seth would never understand the nights I had cried myself to sleep after I left Castillo completely, the nights I had wished he slept next to me instead of that duffel bag.
He would never understand the need to do something with my life, something more than just the club itself. While he had offered over and over again to take revenge for Janie’s murder, I had made the decision for him, not wanting him to be the next body that came back in pieces.
I likened it to saving his life. I couldn’t bear to lose him back then and now I was afraid I was starting to feel the same way.
It was like I had never left.
“Hold on,” Seth called out as he pulled the bike out of the parking lot, the initial movement making me grab onto his waist to keep from falling off.
Screw it.
My fingers touched his abdomen lightly and I felt Seth draw in a sharp breath before I tightened my hold, wanting to rest my head on his back. This felt so right and yet so wrong at the same time.
This was how it should have been these past ten years between us.
This was how it should have ended.
Chapter 10
Seth
I couldn’t have been happier.
I zipped the bike through the quiet neighborhood streets of Castillo, feeling Alisha pull and tug on my waist as I did so. When she had gripped my belt loops, I thought that wasn’t going to be enough for me.
I wanted her arms around me. I wanted her to sigh in contentment against my back like she used to. How many times had we taken this route together?
How many times had I taken it for granted?
Now I wanted to extend the trip, if nothing else but to feel her body pressed up against mine. The way she stood up for me at the diner, to her own partner, meant something was still there. Though we would be playing with fire to rekindle it, I wanted to give it a shot.
I had missed her, far too much.
The trip to the house was short and I pulled the bike all the way up into the garage before shutting off the engine. I didn’t want anyone to see that I was here.
I didn’t want to be interrupted.
Alisha pulled off my helmet as I climbed off the bike, then handed it to me. “Thanks. I hadn’t done that in a long time.”
“You’re welcome,” I answered, placing it on the bike. Reaching out, I plucked her off the back, my hands searing into her waist as I did so. For a moment we stared at each other, her mouth parted and my breathing uneven. I could kiss the hell out of her right now and never look back. With her messy hair and ruby red lips, she looked just like she had all those years ago.
When she was mine.
Instead I forced myself to step back toward the back door that led into the house. “Come on. Let me show you the house.”
She didn’t say anything, but I could feel the tension between us as I pushed open the door and silenced the alarm before flipping on the lights in the kitchen. Thank God the cleaning lady had come that day.
“Wow,” Alisha said as she shut the door. “You’ve done some work.”
I looked around the kitchen, at the updated appliances and new counter tops I installed last summer. The house was old, but I was taking one room at a time, updating it as I went along. “Yeah. What do you think?”
Alisha ran her fingers over the countertop. “It’s gorgeous. I see you whitewashed the cabinets like we talked about. They look great.”
I had forgotten about that. Right before Alisha left for good, she and I started watching those home improvement shows, making notes of things we wanted to do to the house in the future. “It was easy. I found it on the internet.”
“I love the sink,” she said in a near whisper, touching the white farmhouse sink. “It’s so deep.”
“You could wash a small child in there,” I joked.
Alisha froze and I cursed inwardly, wishing I had said a dog, or hell, even a cat instead. “You want some wine?”
“Please.”
I found the bottle in the fridge, reaching into the open cabinet to pull down two glasses. Once I’d filled them to the brim, I handed one to her. “To old friends,” I said, holding it up.
“To old friends,” she echoed, clinking her glass with mine. “What else have you renovated?”
So, I showed her around, first the living room and then the hall bathroom, staying the hell away from the bedroom. If I got her in there, I didn’t know how I would force myself to leave. “The master bath still needs to be finished, and I want to work on the back deck next, maybe even screen it in.”
“This is great,” she said, looking around at the place that had been her home for three years. “Who would have thought the house had so much potential?”
I nodded. “Thank God it was structurally sound. If not, I would have been moving.”
“I’ve always loved this house,” she said wistfully, her hand clutching her glass. “It would have been sad to know you had sold it.”
I swallowed, not sure what to think about that. It was difficult enough to have her here and not be ripping off her clothes right now. “Go on into the living room and have a seat. I’m just gonna grab the wine bottle.”
Alisha moved toward the living room and I fled to the kitchen where I braced my arms on the counter in order to pull myself together. Alisha was here, in the house that was supposed to be ours together.
Not as an ATF agent, but as a woman.
My woman.
“Shit,” I muttered. I knew I should go in there right now and tell her this was a mistake, that I was playing with fire.
I just couldn’t make myself do it. I wanted her, in the worst possible way. My cock was already jumping at attention of what might happen tonight, what I would want to happen if she would let me.
I wanted to show her I was still in love with her. There was no way to deny it. I was in love with Alisha, always had been. That was why nothing had come of my brief tryst with Mama Bear, or any other girl over the years.
My heart had already been stolen from me.
Grabbing the bottle and my glass, I strode into the living room, finding Alisha seated on my new leather couch. Just the sight of her sitting there made me want to beg her to stay.
This was right, this felt right. “What do you think?” I asked instead, setting everything on the coffee table.
Her hands ran across the cool leather. “Business must be really good for y’all.”